House pulls CR amid GOP division

A stopgap spending bill to avert a shutdown at the end of this month was pulled from the House schedule Wednesday because of continued Republican divisions over how far to go to challenge President Barack Obama on healthcare reform.

A notice sent out by Majority Whip Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) advised members that there will be no vote Thursday as had been expected. Leadership aides insisted that they still hope to act next week. But the GOP is clearly struggling with itself over how best to keep the government operating and placate conservatives who want to cut off all funding for implementing Obama’s signature reforms.

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Previewing fall fiscal battles

The 16-page resolution filed Tuesday evening by the House Appropriations Committee is largely uncontroversial in itself.

Funding is continued through Dec. 15 at an annual level of $986.3 billion while making some adjustments for veterans, firefighting, and border security. The total dollars are marginally less than had been anticipated, but the differences can be explained by the way the Congressional Budget Office scores Corps of Engineers’ funding to help the Northeast recover from Hurricane Sandy.

While most of the Sandy funds were treated as emergency disaster aid, about $3.4 billion for the Corps was counted against the budget caps at the insistence of Senate Republicans. Since this money is a one-time expenditure and not “continued” into the new fiscal 2014 year, it lowers estimates for the stopgap bill below the $989 billion baseline CBO had previously used.

The House bill then adds back about $636 million for the Forest Service and Interior Department to cope with Western wildland fires. Operations funding for the Department of Veterans Affairs is increased by about $294 million and steps are also taken to allow the Department of Homeland Security to spend what’s needed to avoid furloughs in Customs and Border Protection staffing.

The totals are still less than many Democrats can accept, and House Minority Whip Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) — with many federal workers in his district — has taken a strong stand against accepting the March sequestration budget numbers as the new norm for deficit talks.

But as a practical matter, the Senate Democrats appear more focused on the end date in the House bill. From a strategic standpoint, Democrats and the White House don’t want the CR to become entangled with the debt ceiling battle looming in mid-October. But there is also a desire to create a cutoff date early enough to force some decisions on how to deal with sequestration.

A second round of cuts is already threatened at the end of year, most impacting the Defense Department. And the Appropriations Committees want the leadership and White House to give them a compromise spending target by mid-November, from which they can write real bills—not stopgap measures — before the Christmas recess.

Setting an earlier November end date for the CR now could help to force those decisions. And if the House continues to dither, this could give the Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) more leverage to step in and force changes.

Waiting until next week is not fatal for the House. But it is ominous and shows the struggle facing Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) with his fractious conference. Given all the other problems facing Congress, passing a short-term CR ought not to be so difficult, yet in this case Boehner and Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Va.) must battle not only their own right but an aggressive set of conservatives in the Senate, egging on the resistance.

In response, Cantor resurrected an old legislative gambit this week which had been used before in a similar situation in 2011. House members would be assured a vote on the CR as well as defunding health reform. Moreover, the Senate would have to address both issues as well. But even this has not been enough for conservatives, since it doesn’t guarantee the outcome they want.

Instead, these lawmakers want the added leverage of a shutdown threat to try to sway more senators and the president to give into their position.

“I don’t want to see a shutdown of the government,” said House Appropriations Committee Chairman Hal Rogers (R-Ky.). “ And I don’t think anyone believes the president would sign a bill that defunds Obamacare under that kind of scenario.”

As if to underscore that point Wednesday, Jay Carney, the president’s spokesman, told reporters: “We won’t accept anything that delays or defunds Obamacare.”